Our Verdict

For

Against

Dream Capture claims to capture video from any external video source up to 1080p, and it certainly coped with everything we hooked up to our Mac.

There is some playback lag in the capture windows, but that's to be expected. The output is saved when you stop recording.

One trick is that you can open up multiple windows to capture different sources simultaneously, limited only by your processor (our MacBook Pro maxed out at 4).

In terms of a feature list, Dream Capture finds itself closest to BTV and Audio Hijack, though these are more than double the price and have more features.

The capture quality is really very good. Dream Capture outputs the footage the same as it went in, which makes for some large files. DVD-quality PAL through DV clocks in at around 300MB per minute, while the VGA-sized video from your iSight camera is uncompressed, so it reaches 500MB for each minute of footage.

Its biggest competitor is iMovie, which comes free on all Macs, so why use Dream Capture? Well, it recognises any video device that you connect to your Mac, while iMovie is limited to DV devices for live capturing.

It's also simpler, allowing you to simply plug in and capture video without messing around with any export options or going through the editing interface.